The Fall 2016 US Nutty Champions!

by Holly Meehan

December 16, 2016

This December marked the third international Nutty Tilez Competition, and what a competition it was! Students’ results were incredible, a record number took part and there was some seriously speedy typing going on! We hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did.

Now, without further ado, it is time to announce the winners!

French

1st Richard A, Chantilly High

“To prepare for the competition, I spent about 2 days creating flashcards of as many words as I could so that I could save time learning vocabulary when the competition started. [My advice would be] Practice as much as you can before the competition. Take advantage of time and learn as much vocabulary as you can in advance. I really enjoy the unscripted videos on thisislanguage.com. They teach me a lot about what conversational French sounds like and how words are used in sentences. They help with my comprehension and teach me many new words.”

2nd Ijahmin B, Stuarts Draft High

Ijhamin said the advice that he would give someone in the future in a Nutty Tilez competition is to look at the word list before trying the level, and He thinks that Nutty Tilez helps him with French!

3rd Maryam A, Albemarle High

“I would advise future competitors to try to reach level 50 before the competition, as that makes it a lot easier, and be determined enough to go all the way through to the end.”

We asked her what else she liked about thisislanguage.com, and she said: “I like the fact that you can watch videos of French people speaking and then fill in the blanks of the text they are saying- that helps you understand how real French people speak and still recognize what they are saying. It’s helpful because in the real world, they wouldn’t necessarily talk as slowly or repeat things like a French teacher would to help the students understand, and it’s important so that you can use the language in the real world.”

4th Helene H, Robious Middle

5th Zachary T, Berkeley Middle

6th Connie H, Corning-Painted Post High

Connie said: “At first, I was feeling great, easily breezing through levels. The vocab started easy and Demon Dante was not fast yet. By around level 35, I was exhausted. The players only kept getting faster and faster as I got slower and slower with the tougher vocab.”

7th Mattie E, Corning-Painted Post High

To prepare for the competition, Mattie said: “I woke up early and ate a good breakfast on the day of the competition to make sure I could think clearly. I can’t focus when I’m hungry!”. Her advice for others in the competition is “When you’re typing starts to slow down or your memory starts failing, take a 30-minute break. It’s way better when you come back.”.

8th Sydney M, Culpeper County High

9th Mikko N, Corning-Painted Post High

Mikko said: “I practiced typing and started memorizing words beforehand. I felt very satisfied with how well I did”

10th Arthur K, Corning-Painted Post High

Arthur said: “[When the competition started] I felt that I would be happy with tenth place, and if I had to work all day to get it I would. I would tell someone who wanted to compete to get ready to spend their entire day on nutty tilez, and block the day out of the calendar. ”

“At first, I felt very doubtful. I thought I wasn’t going to get that far and there was no point in doing it. Then after the first few levels, it was very entertaining and I just kept going! [By the end] I felt very relieved, as the competition was very close and rankings were moving up and down every second!”

His advice for others competing is: “Stay calm at all times. If at any point you get passed on the leaderboards or you can’t seem to level up, don’t give up or get frustrated. After finishing this competition, I noticed that my vocabulary had widened to a great extent. All of these new words I learned helped me become a better writer and speaker of the Spanish language, which I’m so grateful for. ”

6th Joshua P, Lebanon Trail High

7th Jim S, Community Christian School

8th Davin R, Orange County High

“Most of what I did to prepare came from technology programs in our school; learning to type quickly helps a lot. Spanish courses offered by my school also helped me develop a wide vocabulary which was extremely useful in the competition.” His advice for anyone taking part is: ” Typos can really slow you down, type quickly but carefully.”

9th Ryan P, James River High

“for the final round I made sure to complete everything I had to so I had as much time for Nutty Tilez!” His advice for others is “Before the competition make sure to complete all 50 levels of Nutty Tilez so you are aware of all of the words, and have an easier time remembering them while competing” He also said: “I was even able to use some of the vocab words in Nutty Tilez in my Spanish writing exam the following Monday after the competition. It also helped me in my everyday Spanish conversations.”

10th Daniel C, Clear Lake High

German

1st Alexander G, James River High

Alex finished first in German AND third in Spanish – an astonishing feat! Alex said: “As expected, I’m the top in both of my classes at Nutty Tilez, so I got A LOT of practice from that. I was pretty confident [at the beginning] and felt like I would get in the top 10, but I had no idea I would get as far as I did.If you want to win, you basically have to spend the whole day competing, but it’s totally worth it.”. We asked if the competition helped with his languages, and he said:“100% yes. I learned a ridiculous amount of new vocabulary words.”. Well done!

2nd Bondi C, Culpeper County High

3rd Makayla M, EC Glass High

4th Peter R, Hornsby Middle

5th Varnum B, Hornsby Middle

6th Makayla B, Eastern View High

Makayla’s advice is: “Chill, because when you’re in a rush that’s when it gets hard to remember the German. Also, I’d tell them that in the part before you level up (when you have more than one life), if you don’t know it just hit enter to save time and to also reinforce the word in your mind by having to type it in.”

“It definitely helped me with my vocabulary. I don’t think it would have been as useful without the great German teachers in my life, though. More than anything, it re-inspired me. When struggling to pick up new concepts in class, German can become a little discouraging, because it’s like I want to read the book but I can’t reach it, and the fact I came in third reminds me I am learning, even if I don’t know the most.”

7th Grady J, Lafayette High

8th Kiran M, Loudoun County High

“At the end I felt pretty accomplished. I didn’t make top 3, but I still did a great job considering I hadn’t gone past Level 9 before I started the competition. My advice would be to keep going. At one point, I saw no one advancing. If you keep going, you can pass all the people who were quicker than you but gave up near the end. You can pass them and come on top. Yes, I think this contest helped me with German. I learned more everyday words, specific words, and words that were synonyms to ones I already knew.”